Rules adopted at the Community Colleges in NC that could deny admission to those with mental illness
NAMI NC just learned that our Community College system has adopted language throughout their system that could screen out individuals living with a mental illness from entry into the system.
This is a shocking bit of news, especially in the wake of the Arizona tragedy. Our emphasis should be on strengthening supports for those people in school, getting on with their lives, and improving them, through getting an education. NC has the third largest community college system in the nation - it is in fact one of our crown jewels. I would challenge them to grab the opportunity to strengthen supports for individuals entering or in their system to get the help they need, as we do with all other illnesses and diseases! The best systems in the nation - possibly NYU and MIT - put into place crisis hot lines, walk in clinics, and psychiatric supports when they lost too many students to suicide.
Many times mental illness actually appears in the very years that young people are entering college. For those who may have been born with a propensity for mental illness, sometimes the stress of a new environment, the stress of their studies, and their new independence may trigger the onset of a major mental illness. But as we all know, violence is rare- and these illnesses are very treatable. Students should be able to get the help, support and treatment they need while in school. As with most any disease, outcomes are better the earlier you intervene- so we want our future, our children, protected by getting the help they need quickly. The last thing that would be helpful is to expel them, or worse yet- deny them admission! Individuals with mental illnesses go on to become psychologists, police officers, lawyers, - maybe even college admissions counselors!
What can you do?
- Write to the Chair of the Community College System, saying you oppose this rule change 23NCAC 02C .0301 (e). Click here for a sample letter.
- Suggest that they instead build a NAMI on campus- a club, with faculty advisor support, run by students, that works on destigmatizing mental illness by talking about it and offering information. NAMI NC currently has 5 on campus clubs - including one at a community college, Guilford County Technical College.
- Work with your local affiliate to reach out to your community college/university/college to partner with them in developing a NAMI on campus. Click here for more information on NAMI on campus.
After the Virginia Tech tragedy, I reached out to every campus in our university system to offer the support of NAMI on campus- and do you know, I didn't hear back from a single one? But that didn't stop us. Jennifer Rothman on our staff reached out- over, and over again- and today we have 5. Let's get 5 more before another year goes by. Let's help get our young people the supports and help they need to get educated and have full and fulfilling lives.
General Assembly Convenes Today
Who's in Charge? (House committees)
Appropriations Chair - Harold Brubaker (Randolph)
Appropriations Co Chairs - Jeff Barnhart (Cabarrus); Mitch Gillepsie (Burke, McDowell); Linda Johnson (Cabarrus)
Appropriations Subcommittee on Health and Human Services - Nelson Dollar (Wake); Justin Burr (Stanly)
Health and Human Services - Bill Current (Gaston), Mark Hollo (Alexander, Catawba)
Health and Human Services Subcommittee on Mental Health - Pat Hurley (Randolph)
Rules - Stephen LaRoque (Greene, Lenoir, Wayne); Tim Moore (Cleveland)
Final Legislative Oversight Committee Meeting
The last meeting was held just last week with Representative Insko presiding. This group serves a very important purpose- to oversee mental health reform, and we have certainly needed a group to do this very thing. There is a lot of transparency since many reports and data are shared that show what is really happening in our system, and there are calls for more of the same, pretty continuously. This group only meets when the General Assembly is not in session, and there is some question as to whether the Republican leadership will continue the current format. In a conversation with Representative Barnhardt after this meeting, he told me that he believes they will have a more broad oversight committee concentrating on all of DHHS - not just mental health, but that mental health will certainly still be a priority. Stay tuned to see what evolves. As you've read in the paper, the Governor has made a call for re-evaluating Commissions, Committees etc. We need more oversight of mental health,not less.
The committee closes their report with recommendations which often become law. Of course, there has been a change in who's in charge in the General Assembly so things may progress differently this year. Here are some of the recommendations that are relevant to us:
- Submit an application by October to operate a TBI Waiver (traumatic brain injury)
- Appropriate an additional $10 M for expansion of local inpatient psychiatric beds
- Evaluate the efficacy of the CABHA model - by July 2011 and then semi annually
- Develoop reports on deaths within MH facilities, or shortly after the release from the facility
- Biannual reporting beginning in 2012 on system performance issues such as access, best practices, consumer friendly outcomes, system of crisis response, and managing the utilization of state facilities
- Expansion of B-C Medicaid Waiver
- By September 2011 provide a statewide report on the use of hospital emergency departments by tose with mental illness- number, length of stay, etc.
- By September 2011 report on progress in the uniform use of evidence-based practices across all state operated psychiatric hospitals
- Study of the fairness of rates for clubhouses in North Carolina
Deby Dihoff, MA
Executive Director
